Guild Wars 2

Vox Hollow.2736:

We’ve seen some attempt to discourage zergs with CP, Dry Top and SW, but they still have the problem of grouping random people together who may not have the same goals in mind, and have issues with allowing people to play together.

What about the old school MMORPG approach of mobs having a Lair?

Pre-instancing, I never felt a conflict of interests in my open-world endgame encounters. Sure, I might not want another guild to get the claim, but even my rivals were on the same page about what we were there to do. Like, nobody was off picking daisies next to the world dragon.

I think that’s because the space you found these endgame mobs in just didn’t have any other activities around. So if you were at that physical location, you were on-board with the activity by default.

It seems so simple, but I think it’s something they haven’t been able to explore until now.

Dynamic Events are largely unscheduled and there isn’t a quest chain to point you towards them, so there’s pressure to locate them where player can ‘stumble’ across them. Putting dynamic events in high traffic locations lends itself to divided goals and easy access zerging.

But now they have Vertical Space.

Fights could be seen in progress across an impassible span, and could advertise the event’s existence without putting it in a space with dual purposes or granting people access.

Your name is a good example of the issues with Open World. Lady Vox in EQ. you could rez/rush her, or zerg her and that’s how people farmed her. Yes they limited the windowlickers by hiding her behind an army of tough enemies, but we still found ways to exploit the Open World mechanics to make for an easier fight.

There’s a reason EQ moved to instances in late PoP/GoD, and it was to control those elements and the whole loot/killsteal issue, which I admit GW2 has done a good job of addressing.

Vix.6730:

CureForLiving.5360:

Jerus.4350:

Killface.1896:

Its a expansion ofc we get dungeons

Pretty sure they said that we aren’t, at least not tied to the expansion.

They didn’t say that. They didn’t say anything either way. Which most people assumed means no.

No. More. Dungeons. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umpR6LhBhW4 @4:15

That wasn’t the interview I was referring to, the one I was referring to was specifically talking about HoT content, but yeah… that interview…

Thing is, most MMOs this “anti meta” policy is a minority. Other MMOs where there’s trinity have IMO valid complaints where certain classes are bad or less needed, but the anti meta hate just isn’t nearly as prevalent.

I did have conversations with people back in DCUO about why 1 healer per raid was meta and why 2 healers was overkill, but it wasn’t “meta hate” as much as just a longing for more balance, it just wasn’t feasible within the game.

So I don’t think MMOs aren’t for you, it’s just GW2’s community is full of idiots who want their builds to be the best because they want to be the special snowflake who came up with something beautiful, but it’s as idiotic as blaming successful people for your shortcomings. “The Man” is not keeping you down, rise up and overcome it or accept your mediocrity and don’t burden others with your failures (obviously the global you, not the personal you)

Exactly as spoj said. It’s not out of left field when they’ve ignored issues for years. It seems quite clear they don’t care enough to address the issues of necro. In PVP DS is quite nice, because PVP is a game mode where mitigation is actually powerful, but even there avoiding an immob or CC can be absolutely key to survival, and necros simply lack evasion thanks to a focus on mitigation through DS.

This issue is certainly especially prevalent in PVE because of the design of PVE where you have large hits that you are meant to avoid, and that’s not limited to dungeons just more serious there.

Even WvW necros have an issue here. Evading through bursts is absolutely key, even a fully charged DS followed by Plague can’t get you through a well timed Well Bomb, especially if they time some immobs in there. This is why Energy sigils are a must. And we’re talking Necro’s strongest game mode here.

Mesmer has similar issues with the impracticality of their mechanics, but they did a great job of at least making an attempt to address them with chronomancer (more focus on shatters, 1s of invuln on phantasm creation).

If they had a trait such as “1s evade frame while entering (and/or leaving) DS” you’d see that similar attempt to address the issue. Of course we can’t say that type of thing won’t happen, but you can’t fault someone for not believing it will happen.

Necro simply goes against the design of the game with it’s focus on mitigation vs avoidance, and thanks to it’s strength in PVP situations, which seems to be almost their only focus on balancing of the game (screw that turret change!) we’ve seen little to address these kinds of issues.

I think the thought that they either don’t care, or don’t understand to be a reasonable. I have full faith that the devs are trying to create a good game, and they’re intelligent people, but that doesn’t mean they’re not human and prone to mistakes or negligence.

Could extra avoidance plus the double health bar make necros too powerful in PVP, sure, but that could also be addressed. Maybe something like halving the HP in DS while doing the same for it’s natural decay rate. Making it much less powerful as a mitigation tool to offset the increase in avoidance. But, hey, I’m sure spoj and all the necros have more than covered any possible option to address such issues, it’s just a matter of ANet following through on something, which again returns to why people simply lack faith in them, because nothing has happened.

Windsagio.1340:

@Neox

Again, no. There’s so much level and asset work that has to go into an instance that simply doesn’t have to exist for a non-instanced encounter.

It’s a lazy/easy way to force difficulty by limiting numbers, that I’ll grant.

Can you give me an example of any game that has overcome the issues of zerging, conflicting goals, and allows people who want to play together to do so?

I honestly can’t think of one.

I played EQ way way back in the day before instanced content even existed in any MMOs (I guess you could call the diablo style an “instance” but I wouldn’t consider that an MMO without an Open world where everyone was present). We had some awesome stuff, but eventually we figured out how to trivialize encounters by exploiting the issues with Open World the same ways we see today, and that’s why instances were born.

It may be the “easy” way out, but I just don’t know of any alternative as I haven’t seen any done and can’t think of one myself, nor have I heard of any good ideas that solve all the problems.

We’ve seen some attempt to discourage zergs with CP, Dry Top and SW, but they still have the problem of grouping random people together who may not have the same goals in mind, and have issues with allowing people to play together.

I imagine if they created some areas that were smaller player cap zones, that would create new zones for multiple guild members or group members zoning in, such that you could get your own zone for your team of 10-15 or whatever, then we’d be solid, but the intricacies of such a system would be hard to nail down perfectly without resorting to typical instanced play.

Obtena.7952:

^^ This. Why does everyone conclude we NEED things that other MMO’s have? This game breaks all kinds of MMO stigmas. Dungeons are no different. I do think we need content where people need to team and co-operate with others, but that’s not necessarily instanced content. In fact, I think instanced content is the most ‘expensive’ approach to implement a co-operative team environment.

Dungeons in this game were dead once the trinity was thrown out the window. To Anet’s credit, it would have been hard for them to predict that without these specific roles for players in the team, Dungeons would have ended up simply being 5 people swapping aggro.

On the other hand, Fractals is more successful in engaging people in co-operative team play, probably because of the experience gained from the termed dungeons flop. I suspect they will continue to develop ‘dungeons’ along the Fractals path.

I disagree with much of what you said, but I do agree with Fractals being better (just generally more intricate), and the need for group based content.

The problem is without instances it’s hard to create a situation where it’s your team up against a challenge. Open world just has a lot of problems because it’s hard to create a controlled environment.

Seeing Wyvren in the stress test did give me a little hope in that it seemed like it was a sub-zone where less people were allowed in. This allows more control as you can set it to be X people can participate. If they handle the way the “instance” is created in such a way that you can go in with just your friends if you hit the cap I think they could do it. But really then you just have pseudo instances just that they are more “natural” feeling.

spoj.9672:

Im fine with allowing it. And its not even like its being abused to get both elites at once. The golem despawns when you unequip (atleast it should because necro flesh golem does). Theres lot of skills which are used like this because of secondary effects. It would be like banning the free blast on bone minions or banning using weapon skills and then swapping weapons.

I made the exact same mental jump. If it’s not ok to swap utilities when they’re just naturally available to be swapped, then why can we swap weapons from the inventory?

The double wall thing was more of a thought of “yeah, that probably shouldn’t work that way,” so the decision was made to avoid it. Now, if all utilities worked that way, such that a trait that affected it being changed removed the cooldown we may think it a “natural” mechanic, but since it only works in select situations it just feels weird and exploity.

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

That’s why they should do it all A little flavor in different directions.

And I don’t think people are one dimensional either. Just because I enjoy dungeons the most doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the fact that there is a ton of other content available. I’ve done all the LS stuff, not all the achievements though because I find many of them boring and I don’t care about AP and not overly fond of the rewards. And that also why I think metrics are tricky and misleading, because I’ll show up on the metrics for a lot of stuff, but if it weren’t for dungeons I wouldn’t have even bought the game much less still be around.

That’s what makes MMOs so great though, the vast gameplay. Every solid MMO I’ve played has their PVP with different types even, and their open world PVE stuff as well as instanced PVE stuff for more of a challenge, some large scale, some meant to solo. Just a diverse set of options that keeps people logging in and playing because even if they get bored of whawt they’re doing right then, they have options within the same game.

Sure, except that every MMO I’ve played has ceased to satisfy me because of their focus. I believe that GW 2 has evolved to provide what the other MMOs don’t focus on. And sure it would be nice if Anet could provide everything, but I wouldn’t want to take away work from one thing to bring in something other games are doing fine.

I’m thinking Anet is trying to strengthen what makes this game different.

Ehh, EQ would (and still does I believe) put out about 12 open world zones with each expansion, this is where most people spend most of their time. In those they’ll have 1-3 group instances which only a handful get their own art, most are simply cutouts of the open world areas. Then on top they’ll have 1 raid per zone and a final raid zone only for raids, again most raids are done in instanced versions of the open world.

They put out a lot more content than GW2 (old graphics I’m sure are much cheaper/easier), but the point is they give a little bit of everything, and cut corners by doubling up on art.

Imagine if they took the Glint’s Lair zone and reworked it into a fractal/dungeon, no need for art time, big dip in resource costs. They could do the same with a cutout of the Maze portion of SW. I imagine they could have reworked all of Silverwastes into a Borderlands option for WvW as well, and maybe even found a portion to make a new PVP map out of.

This is the type of stuff I’d like to see. And GW2 is not the only game to have a focus on open world

Rising Dusk.2408:

So someone brought this up to me and I wanted to get it checked by other approvers because it seems questionable to me and I’d like second/third opinions on it.

Context: Fennec’s PoV
Reference: https://youtu.be/BIaf5nA7lHw?t=2m4s
Issue: Fennec summons Rocky for Balthazar, but before the skill expires (and thus putting it on 120s cooldown) he swaps it out for FGS which he then immediately uses. The issue here is that this is a form of cooldown manipulation, and while not explicitly banned by the wording of Rule 11 which focuses on traits (quoted below), it seems like it might raise a few eyebrows so I want to clear it with the team.

It has been this way ever since you could activate the skills for the elemental summons, and ANet has made no claims about it one way or the other. It isn’t explicitly trait manipulating, and it also doesn’t seen like malicious intent (I don’t personally believe Fennec was trying to game cooldowns). I’m personally on the fence (hence my post), but I’d probably err on the side of saying this is OK. Well, other approvers? What do you think?

11.) Party members may not abuse trait swapping to refresh ability cooldowns. e.g. Mesmer Blink, Guardian Wall of Reflection in order to facilitate a second use of the skill prior to its natural cool down.

It’s different.

Double wall is using a trait to avoid the cooldown. This situation is just swapping when available.

Should you not be allowed to swap a mantra if you’ve charged it and used one? What about Turrets, have to destroy it and wait out the cooldown?

I think the word manipulation means you’re doing something out of the ordinary to cause it, not just taking advantage of something like in this case.

And yeah I’m not an approver just a busybody PVFer sorry just seems like an obvious difference.

That’s why they should do it all A little flavor in different directions.

And I don’t think people are one dimensional either. Just because I enjoy dungeons the most doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the fact that there is a ton of other content available. I’ve done all the LS stuff, not all the achievements though because I find many of them boring and I don’t care about AP and not overly fond of the rewards. And that also why I think metrics are tricky and misleading, because I’ll show up on the metrics for a lot of stuff, but if it weren’t for dungeons I wouldn’t have even bought the game much less still be around.

That’s what makes MMOs so great though, the vast gameplay. Every solid MMO I’ve played has their PVP with different types even, and their open world PVE stuff as well as instanced PVE stuff for more of a challenge, some large scale, some meant to solo. Just a diverse set of options that keeps people logging in and playing because even if they get bored of whawt they’re doing right then, they have options within the same game.

Yeah that could be cool, any type of reflect or even projectile absorption would be solid.

Lowish cooldown shout with a projectile reflect on it (similar to the Air Blast on engi FT) could pair it with a knockback or damage. Ideally 20ish second cooldown but goes down with every projectile or enemy it hits (they said the cooldown would work like that didn’t they?)

CureForLiving.5360:

Jerus.4350:

Killface.1896:

Its a expansion ofc we get dungeons

Pretty sure they said that we aren’t, at least not tied to the expansion.

They didn’t say that. They didn’t say anything either way. Which most people assumed means no.

Could have sworn I saw an interview article where they said that the content wouldn’t be done with dungeons or fractals but there would be challenging group content. Can’t be bothered to find the link with the forum’s “search” feature. IIRC they said dungeons/fractals are something that may come later, but it’s not part of the content for the expansion.

Vayne.8563:

Dungeons never really interested me. I play MMOs because they are massively multiplayer and dungeons aren’t. It’s a different thought process.

I have beaten every dungeon in the game and if dungeons were introduced, I’m sure I’d play them. But at the end of the day, the very thing that makes an MMO an MMO is the persistent world. Almost every MMO I’ve played prior to this has been centered around dungeons.

I’m really happy to find at least one MMO centered around the open world.

There’s a reason they’re centered around dungeons, open world content has major flaws (zerging and conflicting player goals/competition being the main ones).

If ANet had a solution for those problem I’d be right there with you, but so far they’ve failed to make any real headway on either.

It certainly is the open world that makes an MMO an MMO. Large scale events, an expansive world, all cool things. But when it comes to the content that you want to push your players with, it simply can’t be open world… unless ANet has come up with some new never before tried idea to implement this “challenging group content.” I can’t help but feel it’s goign to be another TT or VW, which just doesn’t live up to that title.

wharone.1809:

Arioso.8519:

I’m running a typical 66002 Grenadier trait set up and added some Rampager and sinister gear to my setup while mostly focusing on burning down husks with grenades and elixir gun. I can tear those things down fairly quick, though if you have glassy gear like mine you’ll want to watch your back for wolves since they can down you pretty quick if you get flanked.

So just running with Rampager/Sinister with the standard Grenadier set-up will do the trick? I kind of want to do something new than just simply powerbased builds in the SW, especially after I saw this engie duo team absolutely shred Slingers in seconds.

Problem is that until the expansion we’re stuck with a condi cap. So while condi is actually pretty awesome on the trash because you don’t team up and reach the cap often, when you get to the bosses, well, bye bye substantial bleeds.

So if you’re willing to carry two sets you could go with a condi build then swap out for breach/vw, or just stick with it knowing you’re not doing all that much

Killface.1896:

Its a expansion ofc we get dungeons

Pretty sure they said that we aren’t, at least not tied to the expansion.

The question is will their “challenging group content” actually live up to it’s name in a way that it’s a reasonable replacement?

NikeEU.7690:

Ranking what they need to be “viable” to the point where you don’t feel like you are gimping your team by bringing a Necro…

1. Blast finishers
2. DPS
3. Fun rotation
4. Unique support

The more and more I though about it the more I realized how important the blasts are to a coordinated team.

I’d add active defenses in there, meaning at the very least vigor, but ideally an evade or block, or even both on the GS or DS skills.

There’s a difference between Meta and just being good enough to contribute to the group though. Engi/Ranger aren’t meta but they’re not a problem in the group unless you’re going for a record. So as Nike said, as long as Necro can get up to Engi/Ranger level, all is good.

dietzero.3514:

Every trait has the same value now. We must max the tree, and we cannot selected more than one adept or master trait. So why bother with different powered traits? For leveling? That is not a good reason.

Also the same thing goes for the minor traits.

Why bother changing it now?

Ahh, pessimism, I love it, it loves me. However this is one of those times I can’t complain. They gave guardians everything they lacked, seems like they love us quite a bit. Now, the details of it though, yeah lets get taht doom and gloom going!

I will say I was pretty impressed by that CARRION amulet kill on the video though… carrion… and it dies that quick? wowsa

phys.7689:

spoj.9672:

phys.7689:

spoj.9672:

Iris Ng.9845:

phys.7689:

Iris Ng.9845:

I wonder if necro will have more than 5 enemy-cleave restriction considering their attack will have a huge windup and scale up with the more enemies they cleave. Hmm… hmm…
On the other hand, the pulse rate of blinding utilities is not reliable when mobs have fast attack rate. From the look of the new mobs (i.e. dinosaurs) in the demo, maybe chill (and slow) will be a new form of protection.

yeah, i think enemies are going to have more skills, higher attack speed, more mobility.
focused bursts will probably require breaking the bar first.
essentially, im thinking those things alone will change the meta a decent amount.

I don’t personally care as much about meta as about interesting game play. If it is fun to play, we may be lucky to see a few new solo record here and there, along the line of what Sandy has achieved with his mesmer. We all play the meta for gold, but only fun play will last and inspire. Necro needs that face lift.

Problem is soloing doesnt look like a favourable thing with active defence still not being addressed. Thats always been the barrier which prevented me from doing loads of solos. That and the abominable solo dps. Maybe ill do some easy solos with the better damage. But i dont really feel too proud with setting the bar low like that.

chill dmg mitigation could be large, combine that with say protection, and some decent heal over time, or vampiric skills, and you may end up a lot more survivable.
we ll see tmr, but the concept they talked about is like horror movies, hard to kill, with big deadly moves.

its unlikely they would throw them into the mix as a brawler without some ability to mitigate damage.

Damage reduction doesnt work so well on bosses unless you go for defensive gear. So no im not optimistic with just those traits. Perma chill doesnt stop lupi from hitting you every 2-3 seconds. In groups we will be fine because we always have been when we get carried by classes with group defence. Solos less so.

And even if the damage reduction was good enough. We dont have enough sustain to supplement it. This is exactly why necros can no longer solo lupi. Im not optimistic about real active defence. But we shall see.

mitigation defense is just about number crunching.
lets say chill reduces dmg by 50% throw on protection 33%

2000 dmg becomes 660.

combine this with death shroud, evasion, regen, etc you may be able to survive indefinately with well timed chill applications and other active defenses.

Umm, yeah… if that happens WOW can you imagine the PVP community? lol (and I know I know, dungeon forum, but acting as if the game isn’t balanced around PVP is silly and it needs to be mentioned)

Personally I hope the damage is top notch, has some vuln potential, and a fun rotation jumping in and out of DS. If they have a trait to share some might and fury that’d be great. With Necro’s general direction if they could have necro at the top in damage production I think that’d be an ideal situation to give them hope in the meta or at least a nice spot in normal runs, because necro has always been that selfish profession.

TPMN.1483:

Don’t think we broke any restricted rules or unrestricted rules.

I didn’t see anything about mini-pets either in any set.

Mini-pets are allowed now, rule changed before the ranger rune change too

unless I’m misremembering something you can bring your little buddies.

Awesome Zui, hope new guards (or old guards that may not have things down) make use of this.

And as for Absolute Resolution, I love it on the Howling King and Lyssa in Arahp4, needed, naw, but instantly stripping confusion stacks can be a lifesaver over the longer cast purging flames in my experience. Saved many people with it on Howling King in the past where previous runs Purging Flames attempts had them eating dirt.

Iris Ng.9845:

GWEN will become NGEW soon. Jerus, dust off your necro!

I gotta dust off the game and scrape off the rust first(serously I tried playing last night just in SW… god my fingers got slow) But yes, I see myself playing necro with this stuff. Looks fun, and multiple spin to wins!

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Ryn.6459:

What it not make sense is Ice bow and glyph of storm on the same class. Nor PS and banners; nor aegis and reflects, etcetc. Those key skills shoud be divided among all the classes. So each class bring some unique skill and you never can have all the OP skills with any class composition.

There you go. This is why the game is so unbalanced. All the important skills (read game mechanics) are concentrated on the same few classes.

For example, why do guardians have such great party support in the form of boons (especially Might), when they also have reflection, AND wear heavy armor, AND can regenerate endurance faster, AND have invulnerability, AND have Cleave attacks, AND Stability?

And why do necromancers have none of these mechanics, which clearly dominate the game? No stability, no invulnerability, no extra dodges, light armor, no reflection, no boon sharing, and no cleave?

At least now we get to hit multiple enemies with the Reaper. But that solves only a minor problem with our class. The classes are so unbalanced…

Umm, guardians have kitten for might

But, yes some classes have too much in the same builds, that’s the key factor right there, in the same builds. But we all know the game is not balanced with 5 man PVE teams in mind, it’s balanced for PVP.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Necromancers could have been the condition variant of amplification I feel. You have empower allies with warrior, Necromancers could have gotten the condition variant with amplification of condition durations, potency(outside of might, there are sigils that directly amplify condition potency by a flat percentage, it was possible to do this with traits), etc.

With conditions becoming more of a thing in HoT I feel like it was a missed opportunity for them.

“could have gotten” or “could be getting” ? We don’t know all the traits yet

NikeEU.7690:

What group buffs does a meta party need? You don’t need Might, Fury, or Vuln. If you mean some unique buff like Spotter you can ask Ranger how well that works out for them being part of the meta.

Necro just needs a low cool down blast finisher, a fun rotation, and comparable dps to every other profession.

Might = PS War
Fury = Ele
Vuln = group as a whole, Lightning Storm/DH guard/Engi/really lots of options
Projectile = Guard/Mes and other little things from the group

So yeah, exactly.

It’d be nice for their overall party worth, but in the meta you already have the main things covered.

But if they’re good damage with Chill uptime and boon stripping as their “role” they’ll be fine for a group. As Nike said, only 5 professions will be meta for anything, as long as necros can contribute it’ll be solid.

Interesting stuff. I had never actually sat down and compared the two kits like that.

But, here’s the problem I see with it. You’re not going to be just spamming the individual kits.

You’re going to be running a rotation with other big hitters, taking a lot of the “1 skills” out of the picture.

How would that change the picture? I imagine that’s where the idea of nades being higher comes from?

If I run the rotation of Grenade Barrage →Napalm→Flame Blast →Acid Bomb →Jump Shot→Blunderbuss → Freeze Grenade → Shrapnel Grenade → Flame Blast → Grenade 1 X4 →Shrapnel Grenade→Flame Blast →Nade1 → Blunderbuss →Nade1X2 → Shrapnel →Flame Blast → Acid Bomb

I’m only going to have time to use 11 nade skills, only 7 of them being the 1. Now that’s not a 30s rotation, but you get my point. When you do get around to the “primary” kit on nade you’re getting some bigger hitters, on bomb you’re just getting the 1, so that would eat into it’s advantage wouldn’kitten

Ralanost.8913:

Jerus.4350:

Ralanost.8913:

Jerus.4350:

Ralanost.8913:

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

Jerus.4350:

We’ll see ont he fractal bit, my hopes aren’t very high with the level of power creep we’re seeing.

I think you’re overselling the power creep a little.

They could as simple as raw-scale the crap out of post-50 and power creep would be the least of our problems.

I don’t think so at all. Guard will be able to maintain the support it has while gaining a huge amount of damage. Engi will be able to raise it’s support a ton while likely increasing it’s damage a little. Ele will get slightly better damage with staff, though it’s support options will drop a tad, but staff is already the go to with such high damage. Warrior is just going to be amazing damage while providing 25stacks of might. Only Guardian in that set have we seen the Elite specialization which if goes unchanged will be even more damage on top. Thief is also going to see a boost if the traits go live as is.

But yeah, if we get post 50 fractals that may help, but have they confirmed that? I may have missed it but wasn’t aware of any confirmation on what is to happen with fractals other than specializations, which again I worry will just result in some power creep.

But, you do know me, pessimistic to the end so maybe I am, but everything I’ve seen has pushed me in that direction, it’s not completely unfounded pessimism.

Numbers are far from final. Saying anything is a huge amount of damage is seeing things in a vacuum with no comparison and also assuming nothing will change. Are you really that naive?

Naive? I think it’s more just my lack of faith in this game. I’ll refer back to my last comment in the quoted.

To elaborate on that a little, I think some of the ideas are awesome, but if they don’t reign in the power creep, I think they’re going in the wrong direction. But, if the powers that be want to push people to get the expansion through the promise of increased power (would not be the first game to do that at all) then so shall it be.

What power creep? There are no new levels, there is no new tier of gear. Elite specs will be on par with core trait lines. If the numbers look large in the ready up videos, maybe it’s the same for the current traits/specs? Don’t assume the worst when you have zero information.

Yup, things could be tweaked. I’m voicing my concern, is that a problem? I could have sworn I heard them ask for feedback in the video.

You don’t need new gear or levels to have power creep. Going from 20-30% in modifiers to 50% in modifiers is power creep, those things add up quick.

I’m saying that numbers are in complete flux at the moment. They aren’t even sure of what they want them to be. There has been ZERO outside testing of them. Giving feedback on something they aren’t even sure about is a waste. Give feedback on things that they can actually make use of. Numbers are some of the last things to get worked on before things go live outside of bug squashing. It is simply too early to worry about what trait does what percent.

So when it goes live and some of these additions go live are you ok with me saying I told you so?

If I’m wrong I welcome an “I told you so” from you, as it’d make me happy

Comus.7365:

Raven.3248:

Sounds like you have very little self confidence. Just go in there and try it. You can always buy the paths if you rather do something else.

a bit perhaps.. i’m new to the game and it’s non trinity way so not sure how dungeons and stuff work in gw2. if it requires tons of preparation and like a hardcore raiding mentality then i probably wont ever do it.. that’s why i was asking.. the skin just looks so kitten kitten i got to have it xD

Feel free to add me and hit me up if I’m online, no promises, I afk a LOT and don’t play that often anymore, but I love taking peopel through and teaching them Arah, so if I see the tell I’ll probably be interested

That said, Dungeons are not as much about preparation as practice, and not about hardcore as much as again… practice. Arah paths can run into an hour+ which may seem hardcore, but if you get a good group around you they can be knocked out in much less time.

As I said in an earlier post, Arah is much about learning what to do when. Much of it is really not hard. Some of it is pretty tough if you don’t have a good team. But, it’s all very doable. I haven’t gotten the new Lupi solo but I’m sure I can grab some friends and make it pretty smooth.

Each boss has a tactic that works best, follow the tactic and it goes smoothly.

I would not compare dungeons to raids at all, it’s a much different beast. It’s more of a puzzle, and once you figure it out you have a bit of execution to deal with, but if you can handle that you’re golden.

I think the only requirement for Arah is either the ability to react in like .kitten to certain tells, or the knowledge on how to differently approach them to avoid that requirement.

I wish you the best, and again, if you see me on (NA) feel free to hit me up. (sorry if I forgot if you’re NA/EU )

Windsagio.1340:

I don’t think anyones objecting to selling this time, it’s more who’d buy?

I guess people have a looooot of money though so…

I have some friends that mainly gain money through the TP, they have tons of money but some things still aren’t obtainable through that, they’re the type of player that wants that fractal weapon and willing to throw the money out.

Where there’s demand, there will be a supply, and that’s not a problem.

I’ve never been a huge seller here, but in my old game I made the equivalent of millions of gold, could clear equivalent of 1k gold in a weekend easily. I always thought it was silly people were willing to do it, but getting to know my customers it made sense. For instance my biggest buyers were this Husband/Wife duo, the husband liked the easier open world content which he’d grind for hours. The Wife liked the crafting and made tons through that using the supplies her husband got. They’d both siphon the money to me to get the rewards I could provide. All 3 of us benefited from this situation, and they became close enough friends that if I had extra spots I’d just toss it to them for free because I appreciated our relationship (rewards were character based not account, so they could just hop on an alt and soak it up). In the end I probably profited the equivalent of 100k gold from them, but they were happy to do it.

Point being, buying/selling isn’t a bad thing, it’s just those that abuse it that create a situation of hate, on both sides (wow strange concept having jerks on both sides ).

I do miss those guys, really cool people, as with all my friends over my 15 years of gaming, I do miss the, but I’m a terrible anti-social person and I am terrible about keeping up relationships.

And, yeah Nevets, I have like 8 chars at <10%, a few of them are at like 25-50% thanks to my boredom and wanting to level things “the old fashion way.” and 1 at 100%.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js5ltIBr73s

Why do people listen to this guy? Is a well made youtube video enough credibility to be worth listening to? Within the first minute he’s speaking pure bullkitten.

Calling speed running absurd is so laughable, It’s been a thing for the last 15 years of MMOs. People did it on Ocarina of Time. Just, wow, such horsekitten.

I will say, he said one good thing… promoted a DPS meter! hahaha

Ralanost.8913:

Jerus.4350:

Ralanost.8913:

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

Jerus.4350:

We’ll see ont he fractal bit, my hopes aren’t very high with the level of power creep we’re seeing.

I think you’re overselling the power creep a little.

They could as simple as raw-scale the crap out of post-50 and power creep would be the least of our problems.

I don’t think so at all. Guard will be able to maintain the support it has while gaining a huge amount of damage. Engi will be able to raise it’s support a ton while likely increasing it’s damage a little. Ele will get slightly better damage with staff, though it’s support options will drop a tad, but staff is already the go to with such high damage. Warrior is just going to be amazing damage while providing 25stacks of might. Only Guardian in that set have we seen the Elite specialization which if goes unchanged will be even more damage on top. Thief is also going to see a boost if the traits go live as is.

But yeah, if we get post 50 fractals that may help, but have they confirmed that? I may have missed it but wasn’t aware of any confirmation on what is to happen with fractals other than specializations, which again I worry will just result in some power creep.

But, you do know me, pessimistic to the end so maybe I am, but everything I’ve seen has pushed me in that direction, it’s not completely unfounded pessimism.

Numbers are far from final. Saying anything is a huge amount of damage is seeing things in a vacuum with no comparison and also assuming nothing will change. Are you really that naive?

Naive? I think it’s more just my lack of faith in this game. I’ll refer back to my last comment in the quoted.

To elaborate on that a little, I think some of the ideas are awesome, but if they don’t reign in the power creep, I think they’re going in the wrong direction. But, if the powers that be want to push people to get the expansion through the promise of increased power (would not be the first game to do that at all) then so shall it be.

What power creep? There are no new levels, there is no new tier of gear. Elite specs will be on par with core trait lines. If the numbers look large in the ready up videos, maybe it’s the same for the current traits/specs? Don’t assume the worst when you have zero information.

Yup, things could be tweaked. I’m voicing my concern, is that a problem? I could have sworn I heard them ask for feedback in the video.

You don’t need new gear or levels to have power creep. Going from 20-30% in modifiers to 50% in modifiers is power creep, those things add up quick.

Most people doing Fractals are much more forgiving though, accepting people’s limitations when they move to range or whatever. Arah, ranging is BAD, not just out of preference but many mechanics punish it and especially the melee players with you. So generally Arah groups are a bit less forgiving, because of that and the fact that Arah is easier than Fractals and should go pretty smoothly.

But yeah, Arah is smooth and easy once you learn it, just takes a little practice. I think it took me about 3-4 runs of each path to feel comfortable, though Lupi quite a bit longer.

As Miku said, you take the time to push him to the wall, that’s likely going to take close to as much time as just top burns.

If you do say an initial burst rotation on Lupi dropping him into phase2, then line up for a second burst with max vuln and a feedback or properly grouped up WoR you can burst to 0 as well. IIRC it’s about 15s i think someone said, watch any current Arah record run?

So it’s not the ideal tactic, it’s only ideal if you can’t do it the better way, and well many that use it can’t do it at all.

Ugh, I just assumed I’d have all the traits on the chars I have all the traits for, maybe having to buy new ones.

So many chars at or below 10% map completion…

Right/Wrong, all subjective matters, just like the rules

And, yeah, thanks Nike for the clarification. From your earlier posts I was under the impression you were saying that the line casting itself wouldn’t hit consistently. Now I see what you’re saying in that there are multiple elements that have either very small margins of error or that may just be wonkiness with the game (like a boss just taking a step out of the spot for no apparent reason). I can understand that.

A scenario such that say you always line cast on a certain spot. But you misplace your temporal curtain a tiny bit to the left, and someone places their line casting slightly to the right, and together results in a missed target and dungeon reset. Still the players fault, but far too big of an impact for small mistakes.

Or a scenario where the boss is drunk and just goes “ehh huh?” and stumbles forward causing you to miss completely on perfectly placed line casts. This would be RNG I guess, but nto really, just a kittenty situation as I don’t think there is a RNG roll for NPCs to be drunk.

dlonie.6547:

NikeEU.7690:

I explained the reasoning pretty simply, I’m not interested in parsing my words further.

Not even a hint? =(

You didn’t really explain the randomness, you just said “it is random”, and I really am quite curious why the frustration line is drawn at linecasting.

If I’m missing something I’d love to have the picture clarified. I can’t be the only one curious about this reasoning.

My advice, go do a record run on a high-RNG path and you will see how disinterested in you are in adding another RNG element to it.

I admit I’m not a speedrunner, but I wasn’t aware of this “it’s too frustrating to get right so ban a mechanic from use” thing. I thought that crowd was into speedrunning for the challenge of getting everything exactly perfect.

If that was the case we’d see more activity in the restricted set, or we’d see Linecasting and such allowed in the restricted set. The goal of the restricted set is to put boundaries in that are intended to create a more fun environment, really simple as that.

But, I am curious as to the nature of the randomness in Line Casting, I’ve seen people screw it up quite a bit, but it’s always because they placed it half a centimeter to the left of the spot it should have been or something like that.

Fact is the whole idea of a restricted rule set is subjective. The idea behind it is to create a better competitive environment. The rules exist simply to do that. Whatever rules there are you’re going to have fringe cases that are up for interpretation. And as such, the technicalities don’t matter as much as the spirit of what is being attempted. If the competitors feel something is better done a certain way, that’s the route that should be taken. This means votes on things will have to happen. Arguing against the collective will is pretty silly (fun, but silly) as the point of the rules aren’t to strictly enforce things but to create a better environment if the rules are stretched to do so, it’s in the spirit of the attempt and should be considered over the rules themselves.

I always liked this quote "And thirdly, the code is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules" because I think it applies to a lot of things. If the goal is accomplished in a positive manner nitpicking “the rules” is just stupid.

I think back to a situation that happened last year with my cousins football team. There was a fight in the JV game and a few kids on each time got suspended. Rules say suspended players can not even be on the sidelines of a game. Some of the kids that were suspended showed up at the Varsity game the next day just standing around and watching from the sidelines. When they won the other team petitioned to have the game a forfeit for breaking that rule… technically it should have been, but the comity that makes the rulings laughed because upholding the ruling would go completely against the spirit of the competition.

Spirit of the competition > Rules. And such if players enjoy the p3 skip as they seem to have voting to allow it. It’s allowed. If they don’t like the COE skip, then no. Sometimes these decisions won’t be consistent but who cares if it’s achieving the goal of creating a better environment for competition as defined by the majority of the competitors.

NikeEU.7690:

LOL Arah p3 is obvious exploit but jumping over COE door is A-OK.

Well COE is just a JP. The other is exploiting faulty mechanics. You’re not even going out of bounds in the COE one, you’re just exploiting a poorly designed environment.

Thaddeus.4891:

Eurhetemec.9052:

Fair enough! It is really ez mode or are they actually using very special builds and classes, though?

Well I saw that with Elementalist, Guardian and Warrior mostly. Maybe it could work with Engineer and Mesmer too. I’m not sure about ranger and necromancer, don’t think they have enough healing capability. And it definitively don’t work with a thief since he’s not design in that direction.

There is a video of a warrior soloing the Mossman in level 50 alone with no dodge. Just to give you an idea.

Yeah thief is funny in that Invigorating precision makes doing more dps = better healing. So you can actually be more defensively sound in Zerk gear than say valkyrie gear assuming you’re able to avoid the one shot situations.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

How to fix the zerker meta:

Dont join speedclear rooms if you are not running zerker armor

The end.

Why is this kitten so hard for people to wrap their heads around; every time this topic comes up we get 5 pages of people writing paragraphs of nonsense.

Because while it should work, people feel forced into zerker because of it’s overwhelming prevalence among the community. It IS the best and even if you do post an LFG without any stipulations or as “anything welcome” you still get the dirtbags who come in and spout off about zerker.

It’s the same reason I’m so frustrated with Lupi Wallsploit. It’s just freaking hard to avoid.

dlonie.6547:

I think St. Dan said it best:

IvanTheGrey.2941:

Boredom is not an exploit.

That’s from the original forum post about wall-on-wall, which is an interesting read in its own right.

:( I miss that name, been so long since I’ve seen him around.

Yeah, it’s not like using an exploit that completely trivilizes the game such that even the first time you’re doing it you’re thinking “wow this is dumb”. And I think that’s the key there. With some of these things, they’ll be embraced for a while, but many will slowly fall off due to the boredom they cause. So we aren’t up in arms because instantly we are opposed to it, it’s more that our disgust slowly builds, and by the time it comes to full fruition we’re more likely to just move away from the game than to get all riled up. Wallsploit got more opposition because after diong it a few times for fun we were like “yeah this is dumb.” FGS and IB took us much longer to create that feeling, so we aren’t really riled up at all, just disappointed at the results of what they caused, and some people are still having fun with them.

Thanks Thad for the more thorough explanation. Again, I think making Concussion Bomb do the power damage of Prybar, and maybe an increase on firebomb would be enough to push bombs to be the higher damage. So really not much of a change required to create that situation.

Axelwarrior.9084:

Jerus, dlonie: So, you don’t really care if others are using it, you just find it unfun and that’s why you don’t do it yourself. And you also don’t think that it’s any more “exploit-y” than the other typical tactics used in dungeons? You want it to stop because you don’t like it, not because you think it’s particularly bad for the game?

I was with you until that last line. I do think it’s bad for the game, I don’t think that gamer’s are particularly bad for using it (though many that do only use it because they can’t beat it without).

I think it’s bad for the game just like I thought FGS was bad for the game and the current IB is bad for the game.

If players had self control however, it’d be fine, but we don’t, and if something as powerful as these things are allowed to remain, we’ll use them and just become bored with the game, and being bored is bad for the game, I mean it’s a game and meant to entertain right?

Rin.1046:

Slow dps players down by making them deal with content more carefully, but do not stop them from doing it.

This is one of the things I think one of my old games did very well with a certain content design choice. They had a lot of stuff that was % based effects on the boss. Be it strait AE damage, Add Spawns, or required mechanics. Thing is GW2 relies on it’s NPCs to trigger these actions instead of the game itself, hence Lupi/Grawl Shaman phase skips. In the old game I’m talking about though we had encounters where say you had 2 adds spawn every 10% on the boss. If you unleashed a massive burn you may be able to take it from 100% to 60% in a couple seconds, such that the adds either hadn’t spawned or hadn’t reached you, but when they did, you’d get 8 adds coming at you instead of just 2.

This made bursting through certain enemies much more risky on top of the already more risky DPS setups. It was still very doable with correct tactics, but it made you consider what you were doing. Some enemies we’d not unleash the massive burns till the end when we knew it would finish it off, opting for a more controlled approach for the first 60% of the fight.

Now, again, I don’t know how they’d translate that type of system over to GW2, seems like the mechanics are different, and with current HP levels on many enemies you can burst them down from 100-0, so it’d render that type of design null anyways.

But, I thought it was worth mentioning it, because it fits what you were talking about, and I liked it very much. As it wasn’t just taking less safety nets, but actually making the content harder.

Saiyan.1704:

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

Jerus.4350:

We’ll see ont he fractal bit, my hopes aren’t very high with the level of power creep we’re seeing.

I think you’re overselling the power creep a little.

They could as simple as raw-scale the crap out of post-50 and power creep would be the least of our problems.

I don’t think so at all. Guard will be able to maintain the support it has while gaining a huge amount of damage. Only Guardian in that set have we seen the Elite specialization which if goes unchanged will be even more damage on top.

The specialization isn’t giving us large amount of damage. In fact, damage has already been increased across the board thanks to all the damage modifiers they’re giving us.

You can’t stand toe-to-toe against some one with the Bow alone. It’s mainly used as a cc, control weapon with mediocre damage output. Similar to a Warrior’s Bow except DH will offer more support.

The biggest buffs in the Specialization tree is going to be the F1 changes and condi changes.

• Blocking attacks powers your F1 passive, making your next attack inflict burns.
• Trap hits inflict bleeds
• F1’s Active pulses burns instead of applying a single target burn effect.

Everything else is pretty much generic traits that may or may not be worth taking. So no, it’s not going to be pay to win.

I have 0 intention of bringing a Bow into PVE, it’s just the traits and utilities I’d be grabbing. Though it sounds like you’re speaking from a more PVP focused stance, what you quoted is discussing Fractals specifically. In which case the traits that I’m concerned with are the damage modifiers mainly. We’re looking at the potential of like 50%+ in damage modifiers from builds.